Tag Archives: religions

When I think of #BLOTUS, his family and cronies, this quote immediately comes to mind. Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such unmitigated intolerance, lying and corruption focused in the hands of so few and accepted by so many.

I love Sufi poetry, and Rumi and Hafiz have long been favorites. I recently came across this delightful quote by Rumi and I share it now because of its timeliness in my own life.

When a man has boils or scabies,, he isn’t disgusted with himself; he puts his infected hand in his dish and he licks his fingers without any repugnance. But, if he sees a small sore on someone else’s hand he can’t swallow his food. It’s the same with moral blemishes; when you see defects such as indifference, pride, and lust in yourself, they don’t bother you; but as soon as you notice them in others, you feel hurt and resentful.

Jesus is clear in his call for those following him to treat one another just as they would want to be treated. We know it as the “Golden Rule.” Wonderfully, every major religion and faith tradition has the Golden Rule as part of their core values.

The frightening bottom line in the Christian faith is that Jesus says we will be judged exactly like we judge those around us. The measure we give is the measure we will get.

We all have our own moral warts and scabies. Before we start pointing our infected fingers at those around us we need to first clear up the blemishes in our own less-than-perfect lives.

I have often stated my firm belief that we can end hunger in our lifetime. And just as often I have provided reason and rationale for that belief. This morning I will do so yet again.

All it would take to eradicate the scourge of hunger forever is for people of faith to live out the teachings of those they profess to follow. Ending hunger is simply a matter of people of faith adopting lifestyles of faithfulness.

All the world’s great religions teach the same core values of love, compassion, and justice. The Golden Rule is a major tenet of all the world’s great faiths. And if those of us who profess even a modicum of spirituality would live according to the tenet of the Golden Rule we would soon have a world where hunger was nothing but an ugly memory. Hunger is a lifestyle issue.

In my book, Getting Off Our Buts: Making Mission Happen,I put it this way:

People are hungry because they are poor. The poor are powerless. They are powerless because we have no sense of community. Regardless of what we say, we do not feel or act as if we belong to one human family.

If we acted as if we belonged to one family we would not allow one child–much less 25,000 of our family–to suffer and die unnecessarily from hunger every single day.

We can end hunger in our lifetime. We just need to match the way we live with what we say we believe. Once we begin loving each other as we love ourselves we will end hunger forever simply by being the people we want to be.